Kevin R Brown's bloghttp://www.rationalresponders.com/blog/kevin_r_brown
enMy Beef When It Comes to Anonymous vs Scientologyhttp://www.rationalresponders.com/my_beef_when_it_comes_anonymous_vs_scientology
<p><p><span style="font-weight:bold">Scientology is awful! Why not help Anonymous in their current mission to dissolve the church?</span></p><p>It's a matter of mutually exclusive goals and perspectives. My problem with the 'church' of Scientology is an ethical one; Scientology is not a religion of any sort, it's an organized criminal syndicate intent of accumulating vast sums of wealth &amp; power through the subversion of freedom of speech via information control &amp; intelligence gathering. Anonymous's problem with Scientology is that it's a competitive body.</p><p><span style="font-weight:bold">How dare you say that! The only thing most of the protestors at Anonymous rallies want is to protect freedom of speech!</span></p><p>And the only thing most members of the church of Scientology want is to rid the world of pain and achieve a utopian state. In both cases, the motives and desires of the <span style="font-style:italic">flock</span> are irrelevant, as it is the aims of the core membership/leadership that will direct their behavior.</p><p>And, no - the motives of those behind the 'chanology' movement is <span style="font-style:italic">not</span> to protect your freedom of speech.</p><p><span style="font-weight:bold">What do <span style="font-style:italic">you</span> know about Project Chanology, anyway?</span></p><p>4chan - the parent body of Anonymous - is, and always has been, a miscreant criminal organization empowered by the contemporary ease of access to information. The group has never had any obvious goal, aside from simply sewing misery wherever the opportunity is presented, and has largely excused their actions as 'social experimentation'. Since their inception, no interest was taken on the part of either 4chan or Anonymous in confronting religious bigotry - a fact that is somewhat at odds with the notion that the group is merely interested in the noble effort of liberating people from brainwashing.</p><p>It is not at all unreasonable to speculate that Anonymous has targeted Scientology strictly because they wish to prove themselves the stronger hand in the field of social control / manipulation. The two groups are hardly indistinguishable from one another, but the common threads shared where information gathering is used to intimidate critics and increase power / notoriety does not leave us with a 'lesser evil' one should support over the the other if the goal is the promote freedom of speech &amp; free exchange of ideas.</p><p><span style="font-weight:bold">Well, even if that's true, shouldn't we just work with Anonymous in the meantime, until Scientology is gone?</span></p><p>Personally, I think this perspective lacks any depth. It's the same rationalization I hear from some atheists regarding Christians and Muslims; since the religious right in the United States is as Hell-bent as anyone in their right mind should be at demolishing Islam, we should work alongside them as allies of convenience.</p><p>Unless you believe in exchanging one dictator for another, this is moronic.</p><p>If/when the goal is achieved, what then? Anonymous has eliminated it's competitor, and we're still left with a maligned organization whose intent it is to ultimately destroy free speech &amp; information exchange. Moreover, they're likely to gain momentum and influence as the campaign against Scientology presses forward!</p><p>Scientology needs to be dealt with, swiftly and sharply. But it needs to be done <span style="font-style:italic">without</span> lending support to bodies who will only use such a triumph to cement themselves as the 'church's successor.</p><p><span style="font-weight:bold">How do you justify--</span></p><p>Enough questions from you. I have a couple of my own I'd like answered:</p><p><span style="font-style:italic">Why the moniker 'Anonymous'?</span></p><p>This appears to be paying homage to the wonderment of Internet anonymity; that you can act as you please on the Internet, as you're perpetually wearing a mask the whole time. Here we see something rather ugly: a mocking of the virtue of transparency, and championing of deceit as an ideal. These are among the key attributes of information control, and that they are touted proudly before the 'sheeple' to praise seems to be consistent with the brazen arrogance of 4chan regulars.</p><p><span style="font-style:italic">Why wear Guy Fawkes masks?</span></p><p>I'm dubious that those as educated as most of Anonymous's core membership are ignorant of who Guy Fawkes was (the majority of protesters perhaps just think the V for Vendetta movie was cool, granted); a violent revolutionary who plotted to blow-up parliament with a few kegs of gunpowder because he was disdainful towards any form of governance (an anarchist. The irony here is that anarchy does not mean what even most 4channers think it means; it is not an 80s-esque 'eff the man' punk rock attitude, certainly).</p><p>If you're interested in preserving the institute of free speech, why do you wear the face of a man opposed to any institutes at all?</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>We can, swiftly and decisevely, cut-away the cancer that Scientology has become. We can do it <span style="font-style:italic">without</span> enlisting the aid of &amp; empowering goons that are no better.</p><p>Please, do not support one group of criminals just because they share your dislike of another.</p></p>http://www.rationalresponders.com/my_beef_when_it_comes_anonymous_vs_scientology#commentsThu, 18 Dec 2008 07:19:30 +0000Kevin R Brown16255 at http://www.rationalresponders.comScreaming to the Heavenshttp://www.rationalresponders.com/screaming_heavens
<p><p>Engaged with theists as I may occassionally be, I must confess:</p><p>At the end of the day, the foundation of my demand for skepticism and rational discourse has been built in the face of people like this:</p><p><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qns2W6CVpPw&amp;hl=en" width="425" height="355" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" play="true" loop="true" menu="true"></embed></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>While they may not be as directly dangerous as certain theistic groups may be (that means <span style="font-weight:bold">you</span>, Muslims!), UFOlogists threaten the image of astronomy and, in cases where it bleeds into other conspiracy junk, science as a whole by marrying it to psuedo-scientific methods of 'study'. They prop-up the old stereotype of the mad scientist, essentially assuring that it will always be present in the public eye as a real tenet of the actual field itself, and immediately weakening the credibility of organizations like SETI that practice <span style="font-style:italic">legitimate</span> attempts at finding / contacting other civilizations that may be out wandering in the void.</p><p>These absolute imbeciles and manipulators take advantage of people who (like myself) have episodes of sleep paralysis in order to harvest testimonials toward their cause, unfairly masquerade as legitimate psychiatrists in order to reinforce the hallucinations some people have attempted to get treatment for and charge some of the most poorly funded and understood&nbsp;institutes of science, like NASA and SETI, with being involved in a malicious conspiracy.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>There are some people of immeasurable patience that spend their free time doing nothing but yelling radio signals into the void and straining to hear so much as a single whisper back, and never being rewarded. There are some people (like myself) that really, really <span style="font-style:italic">need</span> to think that, somewhere, the precedent has been set: somebody else has <span style="font-style:italic">figured it out</span>, left their native stomping ground, and is floating freely among the stars. Because if it <span style="font-style:italic">hasn't</span>, that's a rather grim omen (even if I won't be around to see how it ends for the human race, I'd like to think it's a happier ending than what tends to be predicted). There are some people who, once or twice a year, get together for&nbsp;drinks with old friends, ask each other, &quot;Why isn't anyone answering back? They <span style="font-style:italic">are</span> out there, aren't they? They <span style="font-style:italic">must be</span>, somewhere,&quot; and share some tears over the issue.</p><p>The dreams and pursuits of such individuals are cheapened and diminished by every fraud, hoax and ignorant claim reported to the media and government agencies. The scope of the damage is easy to take stock of when one takes a look at how government spending is done, and how the ambitions of NASAs programs has shrunk. The western world's premiere agency for space venture has become, effectively, a shuttle service for network T.V. satellites. I think it's a real problem when the seat of our distant future is looked at as little more than a joke.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Flying saucers are bunk. If you think you've seen an alien spaceship, let me tell you this straight up: you haven't. If you think there are crop circles that were not manmade, you're incorrect. If you think the ancient world had contact with aliens, and that's how they built such huge structures, you're naive of history and the physical power of slavery. If you believe you've been abducted, you need to consult an <span style="font-style:italic">actual</span>, accredited physician and psychologist, who can properly diagnose you. If you think the government and NASA are out to get you and 'in league' with the alien menace, you need to seriously consider turning yourself over to a mental health institute who can treat your schizophrenia and paranoia.</p><p>We're trying to find some friends from out of town, but chasing after a face on mars, having to debunk arguments that the moon landing was a conspiracy and dealing with a constant barrage of footage of natural phenomena, weather balloons and other aircraft does nothing to further the cause. If UFOlogists want to be taken seriously, then they should <span style="font-style:italic">act</span> seriously, and consider their claims before they run around shouting them.</p></p>http://www.rationalresponders.com/screaming_heavens#commentsTue, 22 Apr 2008 02:24:38 +0000Kevin R Brown13669 at http://www.rationalresponders.com